Et Tu, Brute?

March 12, 2018
New Yorker and Harper’s cartoonist Novak, who previously illustrated Ron Padgett’s How to Be Perfect, turns his eye to the Roman Empire in this witty collection of cartoon vignettes depicting each of its rulers’ demises. Novak’s style is well-suited to the task; attacking the page with savage brush strokes, he creates stark black-and-white art that recalls Larry Gonick’s Cartoon Histories at their messiest and most expressive. Entertaining though it might be, the book’s historical value is somewhat suspect. Novak admits in his introduction that a few of his cartoons are “utter fabrication,” and his text can be questionable as well; in briefly relating the death of Zenobia, for example, Novak rejects the common theory that the rebellious Palmyrene warrior queen married a senator and died peacefully, instead relying on one account that claims she was publicly humiliated and beheaded. Still, despite the fabrications and inaccuracies, Novak’s bite-sized nuggets of history “retold” go down easy—making even rectal gangrene a reliable source of humor.